B R I T I S H M U S E U M P U B L I C A T I O N S O N E G Y P T A N D S U D A N 2

EGYPT IN THE FIRST MILLENNIUM AD

Perspectives from new fieldwork

edited by

Elisabeth R. O’CONNELL

PEETERS

LEUVEN – PARIS – WALPOLE, MA

2014

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Contributors ....................................................................................................................................................... VII

Colloquium programme ..................................................................................................................................... IX

Dominic W. RATHBONE

Preface ............................................................................................................................................................... XI

Elisabeth R. O’CONNELL

Settlements and cemeteries in Late Antique Egypt: An introduction ............................................................. 1

I SETTLEMENTS

Anna Lucille BOOZER

Urban change at Late Roman Trimithis (Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt) .................................................................... 23

Penelope WILSON

Living the high life: Late Antique archaeology in the Delta .......................................................................... 43

Wolfgang MÜLLER

Syene (ancient Aswan) in the First Millennium AD ........................................................................................ 59

John Peter WILD and Felicity WILD

Qasr Ibrim: New perspectives on the changing textile cultures of Lower Nubia ........................................... 71

II CEMETERIES

Katja LEMBKE

City of the dead: The necropolis of Tuna el-Gebel during the Roman period ............................................... 83

Peter GROSSMANN

Churches and meeting halls in necropoleis and crypts in intramural churches .............................................. 93

Cäcilia FLUCK

Textiles from the so-called ‘tomb of Tgol’ in Antinoupolis ............................................................................ 115

III SETTLING ROCK-CUT TOMBS AND QUARRIES

Jochem KAHL

Gebel Asyut al-gharbi in the First Millennium AD ......................................................................................... 127

Gillian PYKE

The Christianisation of the Amarna landscape: Conquest, convenience or combat? ..................................... 139

CONTENTS

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VI CONTENTS

Gertrud J. M. VAN LOON and Véronique DE LAET

Monastic settlements in Dayr Abu Hinnis (Middle Egypt): The spatial perspective ..................................... 157

Jane FAIERS

Wadi Sarga revisited: A preliminary study of the pottery excavated in 1913/14 ........................................... 177

IV TEMPLE–CHURCH–MOSQUE

Andreas EFFLAND

‘You will open up the ways in the underworld of the god’: Aspects of Roman and Late Antique Abydos 193

Mansour BORAIK

SCA excavations at Luxor: New discoveries from the First Millennium AD ................................................ 207

Helen FRAGAKI

Reused architectural elements in Alexandrian mosques and cisterns .............................................................. 215

Plates �.................................................................................................................................................................� 233

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grew richer and more hybridised. From the 1st century

AD, and especially during the 2nd century AD, Egyp-

tian traditions weakened while Roman cultural features

grew stronger. This can be illustrated by the invention

of mummy portraits at the beginning of the 1st century

AD and the cessation of production of Egyptian types

of private sculpture after the middle of the same cen-

tury. Analysis of the funerary culture of this period

brings into sharp focus tensions between traditions and

processes of adaptation, assimilation and rejection

(Riggs 2005).

Tuna el-Gebel

Since 2004, the necropolis of Hermopolis, situated

at Tuna el-Gebel approximately 10km west of the town

at the edge of the desert (Pl. 2), has been the subject of

fieldwork directed by the present author. The project

was initiated by the Roemer and Pelizaeus-Museum

Hildesheim and continued by the Lower Saxony State

Museum, and is funded by the German Research Foun-

dation. The multi-disciplinary team of Classical archae-

ologists, Egyptologists, architects, geophysicists and

conservators aims to address a variety of research ques-

tions. It is our purpose not only to reconstruct the

necropolis, define its different phases of occupation

and analyse the burial customs, but also to interpret the

tombs as reflections of the town houses of Hermopolis

and as a source of information about life in the Middle

Egyptian metropolis during the Roman period.

At the cemetery of Hermopolis we can observe a rare

glimpse of an old Egyptian town in the process of Hel-

lenisation. In the city itself, buildings that follow the

Egyptian tradition, such as the temple of Thoth or the

Ptolemaic Bastion, contrast with the already mentioned

Ptolemaion or, later, the Roman Komasterion, which

were built in the Classical Graeco-Roman style (Bailey

1991). The same phenomenon of uniting Egyptian and

Greek legacies can be observed in the necropolis.

The first buildings at the site were constructed dur-

ing the Late Period, i.e., cult places of the god Thoth,

including a temple and an underground gallery, but

Middle Egypt was the topographical centre of Egypt,

but politically it was remote. Throughout most of

ancient Egyptian history, with the exception of the

reign of pharaoh Akhenaten who transferred the capital

to Amarna, this region was eclipsed by the royal capi-

tals of Memphis in Lower Egypt and Thebes in Upper

Egypt and, after the conquest of Alexander the Great,

by the newly founded city of Alexandria ‘ad Aegyp-

tum’. Recent work in the necropolis of Tuna el-Gebel,

however, has revealed vivid evidence of a multi-ethnic

society living at Hermopolis during the Ptolemaic and

Roman periods.

Chemenu, named Hermopolis by the Greeks, is one

of the oldest cities in Egypt. The ancient site, adjacent

to the modern village of El-Ashmunein, was founded

during the Old Kingdom at the latest. It was the capital

of the 15th Upper Egyptian nome and housed the main

temple of Thoth, the god of wisdom and creation.

Later, Hermopolis was the location of one of the few

Greek-style Ptolemaic sanctuaries, the Ptolemaion (Pl.

1), which, due to its reuse as a church in Late Antiq-

uity, is still fairly well preserved (Grossmann 2001,

441–43 A. 39).

With the foundation of Antinoupolis by Hadrian in

AD 130 Hermopolis lost its central importance in the

area, especially economically. The new polis was

founded on the east bank of the Nile, at the terminus of

the trade route from the Red Sea known as the Via

Hadriana, but the old metropolis of Hermopolis, situ-

ated on the west bank of the river, remained the reli-

gious centre, linking the pharaonic tradition of Thoth

with Hermes Trismegistos of the Greeks (Fowden

1986).

This paper focuses on shifts in layout, materials, ico-

nography, language usage and burial practices in the

necropolis of Hermopolis that may be interpreted as

indicators of ‘Romanisation’. Egypt had already expe-

rienced many changes during the previous centuries

(Moyer 2011), but there was a considerable shift after

the Roman conquest in 30 BC. As a result of the

encounters between Egyptian, Greek and Roman tradi-

tions, the cultural identity of people living in Egypt

CITY OF THE DEAD: THE NECROPOLIS OF TUNA EL-GEBEL DURING THE ROMAN PERIOD

Katja LEMBKE

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84 K. LEMBKE

streets orientated from east to west lead into the necro-

polis. Unlike these broad streets leading into the

necropolis from the east, the streets orientated from

north to south are only narrow pathways, and some of

them were later closed by additional buildings.

As a result of several geophysical and architectural

surveys, a process of ‘urbanisation’ (in terms of increas-

ing congestion of tombs) can be observed in the

necropolis of Tuna el-Gebel, beginning with the exclu-

sive tombs for priests in the early Ptolemaic period and

finishing in a complex building structure in the 2nd and

3rd centuries AD (Fig. 4). The horizontal expansion is

interesting, but the vertical development of the necro-

polis is also extraordinary (Fig. 5).

The ‘material turn’ in Tuna el-Gebel is marked by

the change from stone to mud-brick used for the later

buildings, obviously a lower-cost alternative. The mate-

rial and the architectural structure of these buildings

provoked the excavator Sami Gabra to call them ‘house

tombs’ (Gabra et al. 1941).

Materials

While the stone tombs had one storey only, the later

tombs built of mud-brick had up to four different levels

constructed one after the other. The theory of the exca-

vator Sami Gabra, that the so-called temple tombs

belonged to the Ptolemaic period, while the tombs built

of mud-brick were not earlier than the Roman period

(Gabra and Drioton 1954, 13) seems plausible at first.

Our investigations, however, have shown that this is

only partly true: there are certainly tombs built of stone

belonging to the Roman period, and it is also possible

that the first mud-brick tombs were built during the reign

of the Ptolemies. To give an example, the mud-brick

building M 17 was plastered on the exterior, which could

not have been done if the neighbouring stone tomb T 10

had been constructed before it (Fig. 6). As a result of the

new building technique, the congestion of tombs in the

cemetery increased and more people were buried there.

Instead of stone monuments for a single person of high

social rank, the mud-brick buildings offered a cheaper

(and faster) alternative, with burial space for multiple

individuals. The use of different building materials,

therefore, had not only a religious significance, but also

a social one. As a consequence, the necropolis developed

in a city-like layout from north to south, with the tomb

of Petosiris at its core.

were especially active during the Ptolemaic period

(Kessler 2011). The first tombs were only erected

around 300 BC (Lembke 2012, 207–10). Built of local

shell-limestone and having a temple-like structure, they

were named ‘temple tombs’ by their excavator Sami

Gabra (Gabra et al. 1941). The most famous is the

tomb of Petosiris, a� lesonis of the god Thoth (Pl. 3;

Lefebvre 1923–24). The same is true for another early

Ptolemaic period tomb, which belonged to the priest

Padjkam and is situated only a few metres east of the

tomb of Petosiris (Fig. 1; Gabra et al. 1941, 11–37).

Both tombs have a short dromos leading to a T-shaped

building with a wide hall at the front and an almost

square main room. The altar in front of the entrance is

another new feature of both tombs. These places of

worship seem to be a Greek interpretation of Egyptian

offering tables. The bodies were laid in underground

rooms accessible only by deep shafts. All of these

buildings were at least partially decorated with reliefs

and painted in vivid colours. When the tomb of Pet-

osiris was published, it was not only the quality of the

reliefs and the perfect preservation of the colours that

attracted the attention of scholars, but also the unusual

combination of Greek and Egyptian iconography in dif-

ferent styles (Nakaten 1986); they were especially sur-

prised to find this mixture at the beginning of the Ptole-

maic period. The reliefs suggest a school of artists well

versed in the Egyptian representational system, but also

influenced by the Greek imagery that was circulating

in cosmopolitan environments such as Memphis.

Urbanisation

A geomagnetic survey by the Institute of Geophysics

of Kiel University has provided new information about

the area (Fig. 2). While in the northern sector two

broad streets, with several small by-roads, lead from

the Nile valley to the sanctuary of Thoth and its under-

ground galleries, the southern sector, the so-called

necropolis of Petosiris (Fig. 3), is situated south of a

processional way leading to a temple with a saqiya, a

water well of the Roman period, in its courtyard. The

survey came to the conclusion that only about 10% of

the area has been excavated and that the unexplored

area of the necropolis measures about 20ha. It is, there-

fore, one of the largest Graeco-Roman necropoleis in

Egypt known so far. Furthermore, the geomagnetic sur-

vey shows, without any excavation, that three broad

97028.indb 84 16/10/14 14:42

CITY OF THE DEAD 85

Fig. 1: Tuna el-Gebel. Plan of the ‘temple tomb’ of Padjkam (Drawing: S. Prell).

97028.indb 85 16/10/14 14:42

86 K. LEMBKE

those of Petosiris or Padjkam (Fig. 7). Since the trans-

verse hall of the tomb of Petosiris was transformed into

three rooms at the end of the Ptolemaic period, it seems

possible that the architecture of M 21/SE was based on

this model. As in the Ptolemaic buildings, the burials

were placed in a deep shaft situated in the middle of

the burial chamber. Furthermore, the anteroom and the

burial chamber were richly decorated with paintings.

Like the transverse hall in the tomb of Petosiris, the

anteroom seems to use decoration to communicate

between this world and the next, while the scenes of

the second room centre on illustrations from the Book

of the Dead.

Iconography

The decoration of the tombs shows a development

from Egyptian themes to Roman iconography, a pro-

cess that can be demonstrated in three examples. As we

have already seen, in the early Roman period at the

latest, mud-brick buildings became more and more

numerous in the necropolis, and the interiors as well as

the façades of the tombs were plastered and painted.

The earliest decorated example known so far is house

tomb M 21/SE (Gabra et al. 1941, 39–50, pls 8–17).

Its ground plan, with three rooms across a transverse

front and a square burial room behind, is strongly

related to the early Ptolemaic stone tombs, such as

Fig. 2: Tuna el-Gebel. General view of the geomagnetic map of the site (Courtesy of Kiel University, Institute of Geophysics).

97028.indb 86 16/10/14 14:42

CITY OF THE DEAD 87

sioner of the tomb. The rape of Persephone, however,

is especially suited to a funerary context; similar scenes

appear not only on Roman sarcophagi, but also in the

Kom el-Shuqafa catacomb in Alexandria (Guimier-

Sorbets and Seif El-Din 1997). Garlands painted in

several house tombs reflect the flowers used during

the burial itself and may illustrate, like the kline, the

eternal prothesis of the dead.

Inscriptions

A shift in the use of language from Egyptian to

Greek also suggests the process of ‘Romanisation’

under way at Tuna el-Gebel. Hieroglyphic inscriptions

were used only in very few and early house tombs

whereas inscriptions in Greek, the lingua franca in

Middle Egypt during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD,

predominated. In addition to language usage, the con-

tent of inscriptions can also be argued to contain

Graeco-Roman ideas.

Greek inscriptions appear in the house tombs and

were also used to decorate tomb pillars, for example,

the pillar of a man called Hermokrates who died at the

age of thirty-two, before he was able to marry and have

children (Bernand 1969, no. 22 pls 40–43; Bernand

1999, 174–76 no. 80 pls 34–36). The text consists

mainly of a lamentation by his parents, a theme that

As Egyptian painting fell out of fashion, the com-

missioners of tombs of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD

began to favour Classical iconography. The ground

floor of M 12/SS, for example, has paintings in a floral

design, originally combined with a wine-making and

erotic scene that is now lost (Pl. 4; Gabra and Drioton

1954, pl. 12), while M 13/SS is richly decorated with

stucco and paintings in Roman style (Pl. 5; Lembke et

al. 2007, 83, fig. 15). The close similarity to architec-

tural ornaments from Hermopolis and the chapel in the

temple of Tutu in Dakhleh Oasis fix the date of this

decoration at the beginning of the 2nd century.

In the early 2nd century we also find the first painted

decoration on the first floors of house tombs, as in M

3/SS (Pl. 6). None of the upper storeys bears Egyptian

decoration. Instead we find painted orthostats imitating

rare and costly materials such as alabaster or porphyry

in the first room. These stone imitations certainly

reflect the decoration in well-appointed houses at Her-

mopolis and are related to Roman wall paintings in the

northern Mediterranean (Pl. 7). The second room has a

richly decorated kline for the main burial. Furthermore,

Classical myths such as the story of Oedipus, the Tro-

jan Horse, the Oresteia or the rape of Persephone are

well represented. These depictions of mythological

scenes are comparable to painted decoration and mosa-

ics in villas, and suggest the culture of the commis-

Fig. 3: Tuna el-Gebel. Geomagnetic map of the Petosiris-necropolis (Courtesy of Kiel University, Institute of Geophysics).

97028.indb 87 16/10/14 14:42

88 K. LEMBKE

Fig. 4: Tuna el-Gebel. Map of the excavated area of the Petosiris necropolis (Courtesy of Cottbus University, Institute of Architecture).

97028.indb 88 16/10/14 14:42

CITY OF THE DEAD 89

Fig. 5: Tuna el-Gebel. Sectional drawing of the excavated area of the Petosiris necropolis (Courtesy of Cottbus University, Institute of Architecture).

Fig. 6: Tuna el-Gebel. View of the house tomb M 17 and the temple tomb T 10 (Photo: Dieter Johannes, courtesy of Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Cairo).

97028.indb 89 16/10/14 14:42

90 K. LEMBKE

A second example is a stone tomb labelled T 5 by

Sami Gabra (Lembke and Wilkening-Aumann 2012).

It consists of one room only and its façade was deco-

rated in Graeco-Roman style with columns, kymatia

and dentils. Inside, however, a burial enclosure shows

reliefs of a procession of Egyptian gods towards Osiris

(Pl. 8). Surprisingly, the local god Thoth is missing

here. The burials were placed either inside this enclo-

sure or in two pits in the floor. Special additions are the

niches in the western wall of the chamber, which were

originally closed by slabs. Although we have no clear

idea of their purpose, it seems possible that they con-

tained urns. Another explanation could be the installa-

tion of ushabtis, which were indeed found in another

Roman tomb at the site (Kessler and Brose 2008,

79–80). The use of cremation cannot be proven at Tuna

el-Gebel, but it was most likely practised, since frag-

ments of pottery are attested that belong to a certain

type of cremation urn (Helmbold-Doyé 2010, 138).

Nevertheless, examples of cremation in Egypt are quite

rare, even in Alexandria (Cartron 2012, 42–43).

The last example for burial practices at Tuna

el-Gebel is the house tomb M 3 (discussed previously,

we observe frequently in other inscriptions at Tuna

el-Gebel. Other texts on the same pillar, however,

demonstrate a different character and are not formu-

lated in the third person, but in the first person: it is the

deceased himself addressing visitors to the tomb.

Hermokrates’ pillar was placed in a small open court

in front of a house tomb that once consisted of two

storeys. As there are no traces of a burial either inside

or below the pillar, it seems probable that it is a ceno-

taph and not his actual burial place. Other pillars were

either placed along one of the main streets leading from

east to west or along the balustrade dividing the temple

area from the cemetery. According to the inscriptions,

it seems probable that all of the pillars were erected for

young men who died before being married.

Another example is the pillar of the son of a certain

Epimachos situated in the immediate vicinity of

Hermokrates’ pillar (Bernand 1969, 377–86, no. 97,

pls 43–44; Bernand 1999, 160–62, no. 71, pl. 29).

Both were placed directly beside one of the main

streets leading into the necropolis and, with their

height and colourful appearance, would have caught

the attention of passers-by. The text begins with the

following words:

Wanderer—do not pass me in silence, me, the son of

Epimachos! Stay—the odour of cedar oil shall not make

you sad. Remain and listen a bit to the good smelling

deceased (Bernard 1999, no. 71, lines 1–4).

According to Étienne Bernand, who published two cor-

pora on the inscriptions of Hermopolis and Tuna el-

Gebel, these words show a dislike of Egyptian habits

such as mummification, since cedar resin was used to

preserve the corpses and is, in contrast to this evidence

as interpreted by Bernard, usually described as making

the dead smell good (Bernand 1999, 161). Is this

epigram, therefore, indeed a statement of a Greek

family that denies Egyptian traditions? And what was

the relationship between mummification, inhumation

and cremation at Tuna el-Gebel? Trends in burial prac-

tice at the site can be illustrated with three examples.

Burials

The burial in the house tomb M 21, referred to

above, was located in a shaft measuring over 8m deep.

Although it was originally constructed for one woman

only, many fragments of mummy masks found in the

shaft demonstrate the continuing use of the tomb until

the 2nd century AD or later (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7: Tuna el-Gebel. Plan of M 21 (Gabra et al. 1941, pl. 9).

97028.indb 90 16/10/14 14:42

CITY OF THE DEAD 91

round. The inscriptions reflect the population of the

Egyptian metropolis in the change of styles and fash-

ions. With regards to tomb decoration, a change can be

observed from Egyptian themes referencing vignettes

from the Book of the Dead to Greek iconography

depicting scenes from Homeric myths. In the 2nd cen-

tury AD, at the latest, ‘Romanisation’ was complete,

insofar as Greek language and Greek themes were pre-

ferred in the burial complexes.

Another interesting feature is the reuse of early

Ptolemaic constructions, starting at the end of the 1st

century BC. This tendency suggests a need for more

space. Unfortunately, we have very little information

about the people subsequently buried in the tombs of

Petosiris and Padjkam, which were originally con-

structed in the early 3rd century BC. Only in the case

of Petosiris’ elder brother, Djed-Thoth-iu-ef-ankh, does

Gabra’s unpublished documentation attest a certain

Marcus Aurelius Ammonius, a Hermopolitan athlete. A

large marble slab with an epitaph in his honour, dating

from the beginning of the 3rd century AD, was found

in a mud-brick wall of the tomb (Pl. 9). This is a unique

example at Tuna el-Gebel of the use of a tomb about

500 years after its original construction.

The change of building materials, furthermore,

reflects social changes among the people buried at

Tuna el-Gebel: while the first tombs were built of

stone, decorated with colourful reliefs and thus expen-

sive and exclusive, the tombs of the High Imperial

period made it feasible for families belonging to the

middle class of Hermopolis to be buried at the edge of

the Western Desert.

The change of material had another impact: while

the stone tombs resembled small Egyptian temples, the

later mud-brick tombs show similarities to houses. The

size of the rooms and the height of the multi-storey

buildings recall the houses of Hermopolis, and so too

does their decoration. Themes from Greek mythology,

floral ornaments and imitations of rare and costly

stones are elements seen in villas of the Roman empire

and give us a sense of the private housing of the

wealthy in Middle Egypt, which has not otherwise sur-

vived.

Although we have achieved many results in the

course of the project over the past six years, there are

still questions that remain. Who were the craftsmen

who built and decorated the tombs? In which cultural

environment were they trained? In terms of a regional

case study, how did the foundation of Antinoupolis in

AD 130 influence the development of Hermopolis and

Pl. 7). Although the back wall was heavily restored, the

holes for fixing wooden covers over the kline like a

mattress are still preserved. In this case we may con-

clude that burials could have been placed inside the

recess as well as on the kline. Unfortunately there has

been only one case in which the excavators have docu-

mented a mummy openly exposed on the kline�(M 10:

Lembke 2007, 31, fig. 6).

Conclusion

The development of burial customs in Tuna el-Gebel

demonstrates a tendency to protect and conceal the

body during Ptolemaic and early Roman times, while

later, from the second half of the 1st century to the 3rd

century AD, corpses were displayed in an open space

for a certain period and buried afterwards. It is against

this custom that the son of Epimachos apparently

polemicises, and although we have yet to locate his

remains, it is quite improbable that he was buried in

one of the house tombs. The single tomb pillars that

seem to have been reserved for boys and unmarried

young men and placed along the main streets of the

necropolis may have been cenotaphs only. I have sug-

gested here that the inscription of Epimachos’ son is an

argument against mummification as it was practised in

the house tombs. In an unpublished paper Stefan

Pfeiffer argued that it is not only a polemic against

Egyptian traditions, but also against Greek customs of

that period. According to his argument, the tomb

owner, who was not mummified and prohibited mourn-

ing at his grave, was reflecting Stoic philosophical con-

cerns and therefore firmly rooted in the intellectual

world of the Roman elite. A contemporary inscription

in the house tomb of a young woman named Isidora

(M 1) stresses the feeling of relief that results from

a willing acceptance of fate. The father of the dead girl

writes, ‘No longer I will bring you offerings with

lamentations, daughter, since I realised that you became

a goddess’.

Finally, can we answer the question: who was bur-

ied in Tuna el-Gebel? Were they Greeks or Romans

adapting Egyptian burial customs, or Egyptians in

Greek or Roman disguise? The earliest tombs of the

late 4th and 3rd centuries BC were exclusively built for

high priests of Thoth and are of clear Egyptian origin,

but the question is more difficult to answer for the later

burials. Nevertheless, according to the inscriptions it

seems more probable that most of the dead were Egyp-

tians becoming Roman, rather than the other way

97028.indb 91 16/10/14 14:42

92 K. LEMBKE

Architecture, Civil Engineering and Urban Planning,

Prof. Dr. K. Rheidt), Kiel University (Institute of Geo-

sciences, Dr. H. Stümpel) and the University of Applied

Sciences and Arts Hildesheim (Faculty of Architecture,

Engineering and Conservation, Prof. Dr. N. Riedl).

Furthermore I would like to thank my colleagues Silvia

Prell, who studies the Ptolemaic tombs and their reuse,

and Jana Helmbold-Doyé, who analyses the pottery and

other objects from the necropolis, for their important

contributions.

how did this affect its necropolis at Tuna el-Gebel?

Does the term ‘Romanisation’ really characterise

this specific situation? When and why was the ceme-

tery abandoned? Finally, why is there no evidence of

Christian burial?

Although we are on the right track, there is still

a long way to go. And we will see if all roads really do

lead to Rome … .

Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to our cooperation partners:

Brandenburg University of Technology (Faculty of

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97028.indb 92 16/10/14 14:42

K. LEMBKE

Pl. 1: Hermopolis. The location of the Ptolemaion, the temple for the ruler cult of Ptolemaios III and his wife Berenike, with the remains of a 5th-century church (Photo: K. Lembke).

Pl. 2: Tuna el-Gebel. View of the necropolis (Photo: K. Lembke).

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Pl. 4: Tuna el-Gebel. Watercolour of destroyed decoration in M 12 (Gabra and Drioton 1954, pl. 12).

Pl. 3: Tuna el-Gebel. View of the temple tomb of Petosiris (Photo: K. Lembke).

K. LEMBKE

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Pl. 5: Tuna el-Gebel. Decoration of the house tomb M 13/SS (Photo: K. Lembke).

K. LEMBKE

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Pl. 6: Tuna el-Gebel. First room of the house tomb M 3 (Photo: K. Lembke).

Pl. 7: Tuna el-Gebel. Second room of the house tomb M 3. The back wall depicts the rape of Persephone(Photo: K. Lembke).

K. LEMBKE

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Pl. 8: Tuna el-Gebel. Tomb enclosure in T 5 (Courtesy of Cottbus University, Institute of Surveying).

Pl. 9: Tuna el-Gebel. Marble slab with a tomb inscription of the Roman Imperial period, originating from the tomb of

Djed-Thoth-iu-ef-ankh (Photo: K. Lembke).

K. LEMBKE

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